Pages tagged "whig"

People have used the term Whig to refer to many things. Originally the word was a shortened version of Whiggamore which meant someone from the South and West of Scotland, “Whiggam” being the word they used to drive their horses to Leith on their way to buy corn. These yokels became interested in politics during the seventeenth century and launched the “Whiggamore Raid” against nobles who supported the tyrant King Charles I in 1648. Charles I had governed without the English Parliament for many years and had attempted to become an absolute monarch (a king who ruled without the consent of the people). Because of Charles I’s actions, the people of England, led by members of Parliament, rebelled in what became known as the English Civil War, and Charles I was eventually executed for committing treason against the people of England in 1649.